by J J Astor
"It will give me great pleasure," replied the spirit, "to tarry with you, and once more to taste earthly food, but most of all to have the blessed joy of being of service to you. Here, all being immaterial spirits, no physical injury can befall any of us; and since no one wants anything that any one else can give, we have no opportunity of doing anything for each other. You see we neither eat nor sleep, neither can any of us again know physical pain or death, nor can we comfort one another, for every one knows the truth about himself and every one else, and we read one another's thoughts as an open book."
"Do you," asked Bearwarden, "not eat at all?
"We absorb vitality in a sense," replied the spirit. "As the sun combines certain substances into food for mortals, it also produces molecular vibration and charges the air with magnetism and electricity, which we absorb without effort. In fact, there is a faint pleasure in the absorption of this strength, when, in magnetic disturbances, there is an unusual amount of immortal food. Should we try to resist it, there would eventually be a greater pressure without than within, and we should assimilate involuntarily. We are part of the intangible universe, and can feel no hunger that is not instantly appeased, neither can we ever more know thirst."
"Why," asked Cortlandt reverently, " did the angel with the sword of flame drive Adam from the Tree of Life, since with his soul he had received that which could never die?"
"That was part of the mercy of God," the shade replied; "for immortality could be enjoyed but meagrely on earth, where natural limitations are so abrupt. And know this, ye who are something of chemists, that had Adam eaten of that substance called fruit, he would have lived in the flesh to this day, and would have been of all men the most unhappy."
"Will the Fountain of Youth ever be discovered?" asked Cortlandt.
"That substances exist," replied the spirit, "that render it impossible for the germs of old age and decay to lodge in the body, I know; in fact, it would be a break in the continuity and balance of Nature did they not; but I believe their discovery will be coincident with Christ's second visible advent on earth. You are, however, only on the shore of the ocean of knowledge, and, by continuing to advance in geometric ratio, will soon be able to retain your mortal bodies till the average longevity exceeds Methuselah's; but, except for more opportunities of doing good, or setting a longer example to your fellows by your lives, where would be the gain?
"I now see how what appeared to me while I lived on earth insignificant incidents, were the acts of God, and that what I thought injustice or misfortune was but evidence of his wisdom and love; for we know that not a sparrow falleth without God, and that the hairs of our heads are numbered. Every act of kindness or unselfishness on my part, also, stands out like a golden letter or a white stone, and gives me unspeakable comfort. At the last judgment, and in eternity following, we shall have very different but just as real bodies as those that we possessed in the flesh. The dead at the last trump will rise clothed in them, and at that time the souls in paradise will receive them also."
"I wonder," thought Ayrault, "on which hand we shall be placed in that last day."
"The classification is now going on," said the spirit, answering his thought, "and I know that in the final judgment each individual will range himself automatically on his proper side."
"Do tell me," said Ayrault, "how you were able to answer my thought."
"I see the vibrations of the grey matter of your brain as plainly as the movements of your lips"; in fact, I see the thoughts in the embryonic state taking shape." When their meal was ready they sat down, Ayrault placing the spirit on his right, with Cortlandt on his left, and having Bearwarden opposite. On this occasion their chief had given them a particularly good dinner, but the spirit took only a slice of meat and a glass of claret.
"Won't you tell us the story of your life," said Ayrault to the spirit, "and your experiences since your death? They would be of tremendous interest to us."
"I was a bishop in one of the Atlantic States," replied the spirit gravely, "and died shortly before the civil war. People came from other cities to hear my sermons, and the biographical writers have honoured my memory by saying that I was a great man. I was contemporaneous with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. Shortly after I reached threescore and ten, according to earthly years, I caught what I considered only a slight cold, for I had always had good health, but it became pneumonia. My friends, children, and grandchildren came to see me, and all seemed going well, when, without warning, my physician told me I had but a few hours to live. I could scarcely believe my ears; and though, as a Churchman, I had ministered to others and had always tried to lead a good life, I was greatly shocked. I suddenly remembered all the things I had left undone and all the things I intended to do, and the old saying, 'Hell is paved with good intentions,'
crossed my mind very forcibly. In less than an hour I saw the physician was right; I grew weaker and my pulse fluttered, but my mind remained clear. I prayed to my Creator with all my soul, 'O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, before I go hence, and be no more seen.' As if for an answer, the thought crossed my brain, 'Set thine house in order, for thou shalt not live, but die.' I then called my children and made disposition of such of my property and personal effects as were not covered by my will. I also gave to each the advice that my experience had shown me he or she needed. Then came another wave of remorse and regret, and again an intense longing to pray; but along with the thought of sins and neglected duties came also the memory of the honest efforts I had made to obey my conscience, and these were like rifts of sunshine during a storm. These thoughts, and the blessed promises of religion I had so often preached in the churches of my diocese, were an indescribable comfort, and saved me from the depths of blank despair. Finally my breathing became laboured, I had sharp spasms of pain, and my pulse almost stopped. I felt that I was dying, and my sight grew dim. The crisis and climax of life were at hand. 'Oh!' I thought, with the philosophers and sages, 'is it to this end I lived? The flower appears, briefly blooms amid troublous toil, and is gone; my body returns to its primordial dust, and my works are buried in oblivion. The paths of life and glory lead but to the grave.' My soul was filled with conflicting thoughts, and for a moment even my faith seemed at a low ebb. I could hear my children's stifled sobs, and my darling wife shed silent tears. The thought of parting from them gave me the bitterest wrench. With my fleeting breath I gasped these words, 'That mercy I showed others, that show thou me.' The darkened room grew darker, and after that I died. In my sleep I seemed to dream. All about were refined and heavenly flowers, while the most delightful sounds and perfumes filled the air. Gradually the vision became more distinct, and I experienced an indescribable feeling of peace and repose. I passed through fields and scenes I had never seen before, while every place was filled with an all-pervading light. Sometimes I seemed to be miles in air; countless suns and their planets shone, and dazzled my eyes, while no bird-of-paradise was as happy or free as I. Gradually it came to me that I was awake, and that it was no dream. Then I remembered my last moments, and perceived that I had died. Death had brought freedom, my work in the flesh was ended, I was indeed alive.
"'O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?' In my dying moments I had forgotten what I had so often preached--'Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.' In a moment my life lay before me like a valley or an open page. All along its paths and waysides I saw the little seeds of word and deed that I had sown extending and bearing fruit forever for good or evil. I then saw things as they were, and realized the faultiness of my former conclusions, based as they had been on the incomplete knowledge obtained through embryonic senses. I also saw the Divine purpose in life as the design in a piece of tapestry, whereas before I had seen but the wrong side. It is not till we have lost the life in the flesh that we realize its dignity and value, for every hour gives us opportunities of helping or elevating some human being--it may be ourselves--of doing something in
His service.
"Now that time is past, the books are closed, and we can do nothing further ourselves to alter our status for eternity, however much we may wish to. It is on this account, and not merely to save you from death, which in itself is nothing, that I now tell you to run to the Callisto, seal the doors hermetically, and come not forth till a sudden rush of air that you will see on the trees has passed. A gust in which even birds drop dead, if they are unable to escape, will be here when you reach safety. Do not delay to take this food, and eat none of it when you return, for it will be filled with poisonous germs."
"How can we find you? " asked Ayrault, grasping his hand. "You must not leave us till we know how we can see you again."
"Think hard and steadfastly of me, you three," replied the spirit, "if you want me, and I shall feel your thought"; saying which, he vanished before their eyes, and the three friends ran to the Callisto.
Doubts And Philosophy
On reaching it, they climbed the ladder leading to the second-story opening, and entering through this, they closed the door, screwing it tightly in place.
"Now," said Cortlandt, "we can see what changes, if any, this wonderful gust will effect."
"He made no strictures on our senses, such as they are," said Bearwarden, "but implied that evolution would be carried much further in us, from which I suppose we may infer that it has not yet gone far. I wish we had recorked those brandy peaches, for now they will be filled with poisonous germs. I wonder if our shady friend could not tell us of an antiseptic with which they might be treated?"
"Those fellows," thought Ayrault, who had climbed to the dome, from which he had an extended view, "would jeer at an angel, while the deference they showed the spirit seems, as usual, to have been merely superficial."
"Let us note," said Cortlandt, "that the spirit thermometer outside has fallen several degrees since we entered, though, from the time taken, I should not say that the sudden change would be one of temperature."
Just then they saw a number of birds, which had been resting in a clump of trees, take flight suddenly; but they fell to the ground before they had risen far, and were dashed to pieces. In another moment the trees began to bend and sway before the storm; and as they gazed, the colour of the leaves turned from green and purple to orange and red. The wind blew off many of these, and they were carried along by the gusts, or fluttered to the ground, which was soon strewed with them. It was a typical autumnal scene. Presently the wind shifted, and this was followed by a cold shower of rain.
"I think the worst is over," said Bearwarden. "The Sailor's Guide says:
'When the rain's before the wind,
Halliards, sheets, and braces mind;
When the wind's before the rain,
Soon you can make sail again.'
Doubtless that will hold good here."
This proved to be correct; and, after a repetition of the precautions they had taken on their arrival on the planet in regard to the inhalability of the air, they again sallied forth. They left their magazine shot-guns, taking instead the double-barrelled kind, on account of the rapidity with which this enabled them to fire the second barrel after the first, and threw away the water that had collected in the bucket, out of respect to the spirit's warning. They noticed a pungent odour, and decided to remain on high ground, since they had observed that the birds, in their effort to escape, had flown almost vertically into the air. On reaching the grove in which they had seen the storm, they found their table and everything on it exactly as they had left it. Bearwarden threw out the brandy peaches on the ground, exclaiming that it was a shame to lose such good preserves, and they proceeded on their walk. They passed hundreds of dead birds, and on reaching the edge of the toadstool valley were not a little surprised to find that every toadstool had disappeared.
"I wonder," said the doctor, "if there can be any connection between the phenomenon of the disappearance of those toadstools and the death of the birds? We could easily discover it if they had eaten them, or if in any other way the plants could have entered their bodies; but I see no way in which that can have happened."
Resolving to investigate carefully any other fungi they might see, they resumed their march. The cold, distant-looking sun, apparently about the size of an orange, was near the horizon. Saturn's rotation on its axis occupying only ten hours and fourteen minutes, being but a few minutes longer than Jupiter's, they knew it would soon be night. Finding a place on a range of hills sheltered by rocks and a clump of trees of the evergreen species, they arranged themselves as comfortably as possible, ate some of the sandwiches they had brought, lighted their pipes, and watched the dying day. Here were no fire-flies to light the darkening minutes, nor singing flowers to lull them to sleep with their song but six of the eight moons, each at a different phase, and with varied brightness, bathed the landscape in their pale, cold rays; while far above them, like a huge rainbow, stretched the great rings in effulgent sheets, reaching thousands of miles into space, and flooded everything with their silvery light.
"How poor a place compared with this," they thought to themselves, "is our world!" and Ayrault wished that his soul was already free; while the dead leaves rustling in the gentle breeze, and the nightwinds, sighing among the trees, seemed to echo his thought. Far above their heads, and in the vastness of space, the well-known stars and constellations, notwithstanding the enormous distance they had now come, looked absolutely unchanged, and seemed to them emblematic of tranquillity and eternal repose. The days were changed by their shortness, and by the apparent loss of power in the sun; and the nights, as if in compensation, were magnificently illuminated by the numerous moons and splendid rings, though neither rings nor satellites shone with as strong a light as the terrestrial moon. But in nothing outside of the solar system was there any change; and could AEneas's Palinurus, or one of Philip of Macedon's shepherds, be brought to life here, he would see exactly the same stars in the same positions; and, did he not know of his own death or of the lapse of time, he might suppose, so far as the heavens were affected, that he had but fallen asleep, or had just closed his eyes.
"I have always regretted," said Cortlandt, "that I was not born a thousand years later."
"Were it not," added Ayrault, "that our earth is the vestibule to space, and for the opportunities it opens, I should rather never have lived, for life in itself is unsatisfying."
"You fellows are too indefinite and abstract for me," said Bearwarden. "I like something tangible and concrete. The utilitarianism of the twentieth century, by which I live, paradoxical though it may seem, would be out of place in space, unless we can colonize the other planets, and improve their arrangements and axes."
Mixed with Ayrault's philosophical and metaphysical thoughts were the memories of his sweetheart at Vassar, and he longed, more than his companions, for the spirit's return, that he might ask him if perchance he could tell him aught of her, and whether her thoughts were then of him.
Finally, worn out by the fatigue and excitement of the day, they set the protection-wires, more from force of habit than because they feared molestation and, rolling themselves in their blankets--for the night was cold--were soon fast asleep; Ayrault's last thought having been of his fiancee, Cortlandt's of the question he wished to ask the spirit, and Bearwarden's of the progress of his Company in the work of straightening the terrestrial axis. Thus they slept seven hundred and ninety million miles beyond their earth's orbit, and more than eight hundred million from the place where the earth was then. While they lay unconscious, the clouds above them froze, and before morning there was a fall of snow that covered the ground and them as they lay upon it. Soon three white mounds were all that marked their presence, and the cranes and eagles, rising from their roosts in response to the coming day, looked unconcernedly at all that was human that they had ever seen. Finally, wakened by the resounding cries of these birds, Bearwarden and Cortlandt arose, and meeting Ayrault, who had already risen, mistook the snowy form before them for the spir
it, and thinking the dead bishop had revisited them, they were preparing to welcome him, and to propound the questions they had formulated, when Ayrault's familiar voice showed them their mistake.
"Seeing your white figures," said he, "rise apparently in response to those loud calls, reminded me of what the spirit told us of the last day, and of the awakening and resurrection of the dead."
The scene was indeed weird. The east, already streaked with the rays of the rising faraway sun, and the pale moons nearing the horizon in the west, seemed connected by the huge bow of light. The snow on the dark evergreens produced a contrast of colour, while the other trees raised their almost bare and whitened branches against the sky, as though in supplication to the mysterious rings, which cast their light upon them and on the ground. As they gazed, however, the rings became grey, the moons disappeared, and another day began. Feeling sure the snow must have cleared the air of any deleterious substances it contained the day before, they descended into the neighbouring valley, which, having a southerly exposure, was warm in comparison with the hills. As they walked they disturbed a number of small rodents, which quickly ran away and disappeared in their holes.
"Though we have seen none of the huge creatures here," said Cortlandt, "that were so plentiful on Jupiter, these burrowers belong to a distinctly higher scale than those we found there, from which I take it we may infer that the evolution of the animal kingdom has advanced further on this planet than on Jupiter, which is just what we have a right to expect; for Saturn, in addition to being the smaller and therefore more matured of the two, has doubtless had a longer individual existence, being the farther from the sun." Notwithstanding the cold of the night, the flowers, especially the lilies, were as beautiful as ever, which surprised them not a little, until, on examining them closely, they found that the stems and veins in the leaves were fluted, and therefore elastic, so that, should the sap freeze, it could expand without bursting the cells, thereby enabling the flowers to withstand a short frost. They noticed that many of the curiously shaped birds they saw at a distance from time to time were able to move with great rapidity along the ground, and had about concluded that they must have four legs, being similar to winged squirrels, when a long, low quadruped, about twenty-five feet from nostrils to tail, which they were endeavouring to stalk, suddenly spread two pairs of wings, flapping the four at once, and then soared off at great speed.